Mentalist TimeOff Series
by FiferRose
Summary: How each of the team members spend their nights off. Each chapter will be a one-shot for a different team member.
1. van Pelt: Chrysanthemums

**A/N  
I can totally see Van Pelt as a garden chick.**

**Don't own, don't sue.**

* * *

The ground yields easily to my bare hands. I grasp a handful of invading weeds at the root and end their reign among my flowers by pulling them from their earthy thrones and tossing them to the side. Task complete, I blow a stray strand of long red hair from my face and sit back on my haunches. Surveying the work of God and me, I cannot help but smile at the beauty of my garden. I love all the bits of color, but the chrysanthemums are especially beautiful this time of year. I remove my gloves and lean forward to graze the dark red petals of a 'Maroon Pride' mum. I fear it will not be long before the flower begins to fade, but I do not let that worry me as I settle back down, and simply observe. I have other flowers that will keep my garden vibrant.

I reach forward once more, and brush away a stray yellowing leaf from the folds of my favorite chrysanthemum. I breathe deeply, comforted by the warm autumn air and the smell of flowers. Gardening is my emancipation from the tribulations of daily life. I bring my stress with me as I tend to the plants. I let every negative thing out, and entomb it at the edge of my garden. With a job like mine, you cannot let the stress get to you. All the people you can do nothing for, all the aches you cannot ease, all of the pain you witness on a daily basis, it has to go somewhere, into a place where it can do no more harm. That place is the earth, and I am simply putting it back where it came from.

I notice the sun sinking lower into the sky. I rise from the ground and gather my tools. I walk to my front door and pause, stealing one last glance over my shoulder to my chrysanthemums, the acacia, the gladiolus, and all the other flowers that make up my very own piece of earth. As the last rays of sun race across my garden, I glance skyward and say a silent prayer of thanks. I bid my flowers a temporary goodbye, and enter my home, ready for whatever tomorrow brings.

Since all my other fics are titled from songs, I felt obligated to do the same here, so even though it has not much to do with the fic, the song is "Chrysanthemums" by Everclear.

The flowers are symbolic. The chrysanthemum means sensitivity, optimism, cheerfulness. I though that described Grace Van Pelt fairly well. Plus, acacia = concealed love (Hello, VanRigsby! Talking to you!). Gladiolus = strength of character, natural grace.

Also, if you have a decent knowledge of flora and gardening, please suspend your disbelief. I have no idea whether these flowers could thrive together, or at all in CA. Forgive me. :)


	2. Cho: Night Moves

**A/N:**** Bob Seger's "Nightmoves" gives the title for this story, the second in the Mentalist "Time-Off" series.**

**Dedicated to **lgmtreader**, who gave me the idea of knitting as the hobby in this story. :-)**

Knitting is reliable, dependable. The patterns differ from one another, but once you start a project, it doesn't change. An afghan doesn't become a hat by its own volition. If you start knitting a sweater, and you follow the rules and the pattern, you'll have a sweater once you're done. You can count on it. In my life, there's not much like that. Sure, I can count on Lisbon to be authoritative and Jane to be irritating. I can count on Grace to be compassionate and Rigsby to be clueless. I can count on the bad guys to be bad and the good guys to be few and far between. Other than that, not so much stays the same anymore.

I am sitting in my office, listening to Bob Seger, as a nearly-finished afghan rests in my lap. I am aware as the yarn and needles move in my hands that this is not the hobby that people expect of someone like me, an ex-gang member, former soldier, current CBI agent. But, it is my hobby, my emancipation from my past and my present. Knitting was just something I picked up in the military while other guys were learning to cheat at poker. I already knew how to do that. In fact, I could have taught most of those guys a few tricks, but the life of hustling and cheating was behind me. I decided to learn something more useful; something legal, for once.

At first, I was too impatient to be any good at knitting. Then I went on my first mission. Watching your comrades-in-arms being shot down leaves you able to appreciate the moments you have and to be in no hurry for those moments to be over. After I could sit still long enough to hold two knitting needles, I thought for certain I had the craft down to a science. I could explain to anyone who asked the difference between a purl stitch and a reverse plain stitch, or how to combine the two. Something just wasn't clicking, though, when I attempted to put my knowledge to practice.

"You're trying too hard," I heard, "You have to have a reason for knitting. Inspiration if you will. You have to put more into your projects than effort. You have to put a part of yourself into it."

And so I did. Everything from my past went into an afghan that I started on the front lines. All of my brothers-in-arms that were lost, I remembered them as I brought that same unfinished blanket home and continued to work on it. And now, as I'm finishing up this blanket that has absorbed so much over the years, I put into it all the people I can't help. The lost people that remind me so much of myself at a younger age, the people that do bad things for reasons they see as noble, and above all, the undeserving victims of senseless violence or their own naiveté. At work, everyone has to be professional, even during the most horrible cases. Knitting gives me a way, unconventional though it may be, to release some of the things I carry around with me on a daily basis. I don't forget them; I never could, but I let the memories breathe and I deal with them so that they can do no more damage.


End file.
